It might be hard for many motorsport enthusiasts to imagine a time when some of today’s most desirable sports racing cars from the 1950s through to the 1970s were little more than old used cars destined, eventually, to be scrapped or allowed to rust away since they were of little value.
A Bugatti could be purchased for a three-figure sum and an E-type or Cobra could be purchased for much less than their original price. When I attended college on the south coast of England in the late 1960’s, somebody abandoned a perfectly clean Singer Le Mans sports car in a public car park outside our local pub. It was there for anyone to take away but it sat there for about two years. Cars now considered valuable classics were raced in a wide variety of events such as this club race held at Brands Hatch during August 1970. Roger St. John Hart arrived with his Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato and did battle wide a selection of machinery in a Formula Libre race, something that would never happen today. Not many owners would enter their €12 million+ ‘investment’ in a wheel-to-wheel battle but fifty years ago motor racing enthusiasts never knew what might turn up at a race meeting. Even fewer Zagato owners would fit their valuable classic with non-standard shiny alloy wheels!
From the book ‘Moments in Motorsport’ by Trevor Legate
